How to Talk to Your Clinician

Clinician - Patient communications is the foundation of the medical relationship. We know that patient diagnosis is made 70% of the time from the patient's history. (Patterson MC, et al Contributions of the history physical examination, and laboratory investigation in making medical diagnosis. Western J Med. 1992 156:163 5.)

Make sure to plan out what you want to say and what questions you want answered. Make notes to help you remember. Most clinicians have a limited amount of time to diagnose your problem, prescribe a treatment and educate you about the whole process. You can help the accuracy and speed of the process by doing the following:

• Arrive on time or a little early to your appointment.
  
• Request and complete your medical history form ahead of time
  
• What is the main symptom you want addressed
  
• Where the location, quality, severity, timing, what makes it better, what makes it worse, environment, and any other descriptions that help the clinician.
  
• Write down all of your medicines, dosages including health foods, supplement, vitamins and over the counter medications
  
• Write down the following:

  A - Allergies, to medications, foods, other

  H - Hospitalizations,

I - Illnesses like diabetes asthma, high blood pressure... - Immunizations- tetanus, flu, pnuemococcal, hepatitis B...

S - Surgeries,

T- Trauma, Major accidents and injuries

O - Oral medications,

R - Reproductive history,

Y - Youth illnesses.

Family History - genetic diseases, household contacts. Cover family history of cancer , diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, anemia, arthritis

Social History: FLAMES

F - Family, Food

L - Lifestyle

A - Abuse of substances and of the body

M - Marital or significant other relationships.

E - Employment ,

S - Support Systems: homelife, friends, family,

Religion